1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to novel dipeptide derivatives and to antihypertensive drugs containing them.
2. Description of the prior art
Many people suffer from hypertension. The greater the average age of a given group of people, the higher is the rate of hypertension.
Hypertension is also an important factor in cerebral apoplexy and heart disease, which are the second and third highest causes of death. Accordingly, antihypertensive drugs are one of the most important drugs for the treatment of adults.
More than 90 percent of hypertension is essential hypertension, whose cause is unknown. The treatment of this disease is thus limited to the treatment of the symptoms thereof. Therefore, the drugs for this treatment must be safe, efficient and durable.
In recent years, antihypertensive drugs based on amino acids or peptides and acting as inhibitors to angiotensin converting enzyme, have been developed. They are not always satisfactory from the point of view of side effects or durability. Also, most of these drugs consist of a compound having an asymmetric carbon atom in the molecule (excluding the amino acid or peptide portion thereof). Accordingly, an optical resolution is necessary in the synthesis of these compounds, and therefore the synthesizing method is complicated and low in yield.